The Whitney Museum - The project, courtesy of Whitney Museum

Renzo Piano - Courtesy of Whitney Museum

The Whitney Museum - Courtesy of the Whitney Museum

The Whitney Museum - Courtesy of the Whitney Museum

Old building by Breuer - On Madison Avenue

Good bye stiff Upper East Side! The Whitney Museum is moving downtown to the ultra vibrant Meat Packing district and it will soon add a dynamic cultural presence to an area best known for hip restaurants, exclusive clubs and trendy fashion boutiques.

On May 24th, the long awaited project designed by the Pritzker Prize winner Renzo Piano finally has borken ground at the corner of Gansevoort and Washington Street, with a special celebration headed by the museum’s director Adam D. Weinberg and the Italian archistar, already acclaimed for his New York Times headquarter and the stunning renovation and expansion of the Morgan Library.

Expected to open to the public in 2015, the metal and glass asymmetrical structure will be a contemporary response to the industrial flair of the neighborhood. It will also provide more space for the Whitney collection of 20th and 21st century American Art with 50,000 sf. of indoor galleries and 13,000 sf. of outdoor exhibition spaces, situated on four levels of the building’s rooftops.

The New Whitney, which is estimated to cost $680 million dollars will offer a dramatic entrance along Gansevoort Street with a public plaza for art, along with classrooms and seminar rooms, a research library, a 170 seat theater, a café, a restaurant and a bookshop. Stretching toward the Hudson river on the west side, the building will face the High Line on the east side, but for security reason it will not be connected to it.

The downtown move will bring this institution back to its roots, since the original museum was founded by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney in the bursting Greenwich Village 80 years ago. Marcel Breuer’s Brutalist concrete landmark 1968 building on Madison Av. and 75th St., where the Whitney is currently housed, will be occupied by the Metropolitan Museum and used as an outpost for showcasing modern and contemporary art.